Tyrant
by Methinks
Summary: It's been five years since the Dursleys sold Harry to a ruthless new pharmaceutical company. Now with no memory of who he is or what's been done to him, Harry's life takes a sharp turn when a werewolf attack forces him to confront a past he can't recall.
1. Chapter 1

**Tyrant**

By Methinks

Chapter 1

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"_Sure I'm not human anymore, but just look at the power I've gained!" - Albert Wesker_

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Important Note: This is not a true crossover in that the Resident Evil story line has no bearing on this story's plot outside of providing the beginning inspiration. There are no Redfields, Valentines, or Weskers - just Harry and whatever friends he happens to drag along his way.

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He woke with a gasp, heart pounding a terrified staccato, a clammy, cold sweat pouring down his back. As he began breathing deeply to try and calm himself down, he stripped back the covers of his bed and swung his legs around the side so he could sit on the edge. He ran his fingers through his sweaty hair, cradling his head in his hands.

For as long as he could remember – which wasn't long at all – he had not once had a real dream, the kind normal people got with talking rabbits and fairies and rainbows and shit. The few hours of sleep he got each night were always either blank oblivion or filled with fevered nightmares of buried memories. Unfortunately, that night had been most definitely the latter.

_The klaxon sound of the doorbell startles him out of his fitful rest. He doesn't know what time it is, no watch or clock with him in the cupboard, but he's relatively certain that the sun hasn't even risen yet. No doubt the fat man who owns the house – his Father? Uncle? Guardian? – will give the people at the door a piece of his mind. He doesn't like it when people bother him earlier than they have to._

_Instead, the fat man comes pounding down the stairs in an eager rush, covering him with dust from the cupboard rafters, to open the door and greet the newcomers. He can't hear the conversation, the cupboard door muffles the sound, but he's soon dragged out to meet the men the fat man so courteously greeted. _

_There are two of them standing in the doorway. He's never seen these men before. Everything about them screams important, from their neatly pressed suits to the expensive radios they both have in their ears. He can see why the fat man is being so nice to them – he actually likes rich and powerful people._

"_Is this the boy?" one asks._

"_Yes," the fat man says shortly, not even the presence of the rich people able to keep him from sneering. "Wretched little thing, isn't he? You can see why we want to get rid of him."_

"John?" He heard someone shuffling around the doorway to his room before a light clicked on revealing an older man in a well-worn bathrobe, pulling him out of his depressing reverie. "Everything alright in here?"

John nodded. "Yeah, just another flashback."

The man came and sat down next to him on the bed. "Which one was it this time?"

"The kidnapping one."

"Anything new?"

John shook his head. "No. I'm not even sure that one has anything left in it for me to remember. It's been the exact same the last twenty times I've had it."

The older man sighed. "We can always hope. If we could just get the names of the bastards that sold you, that'd be a tremendous help." He paused and checked his watch. "Well, looks like it's just about five. I doubt I'm going to be able to get back to sleep and I know you won't. Might as well go ahead and get the tests over with."

"Sure, Doc. Why not?" The teenager sighed. "Maybe this time we'll actually find something new. Unlike the last 43 times," he grumbled to himself.

The older man gave him a stern glare. "Not today please, John. You know why we need to do these blood tests. Those men had you for five years, we've only been doing this for a year and a half – I doubt we've barely even brushed the surface of all the experiments they performed on you."

John grimaced as a myriad of phantom memories assaulted him and looked away, his eyes landing on right arm, where the sleeve of the long shirt he'd worn to bed had ridden up to expose the serial number tattooed on the inside of his forearm: T-E0113-S042. The only link to a past John couldn't remember. Even the name he went by was simply an attempt at making light of his situation: John Doe.

He gave the neat black lettering a disgusted glare before pulling down his sleeve and standing up. "Fine, let's just get this over with."

As the Doc led the way through the refitted hunting cabin, deftly avoiding the mountains of unpacked cardboard boxes littering the hallways, John padded quietly behind. "I take it you finished setting up the lab last night?"

The Doc nodded. "And in record time too. I guess I've finally got the process down after our seventh move in as many months. I finished the final diagnostics while you still had your head stuck in that god-awful sudoku book of yours."

"Hey, don't go hating on the sudoku. Just cause you can't do it for the life of you doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to," snapped John back, slightly offended on behalf of his favorite puzzles.

The elder man snorted. "Right. Don't get me started on all the things _you_ can't do. Need I remind you of the Crossword Puzzle Disaster of Barcelona?"

John's mouth snapped shut and he blushed furiously. Desperate for a change of subject, he latched onto the first thing that popped into his head as they turned the corner into the cabin's makeshift laboratory. "So, you aren't really expecting to find anything new today, are you?"

The Doc shrugged. "Not really. Your blood's been fairly stable ever since we discovered your fast healing last month." He sighed before continuing, cutting John off right as he was about to suggest skipping the tests, "That's not going to keep us from doing the tests though. We need to know what they did to you."

"I know..." groaned John as he hopped up onto the well-used lab table in the center of the room. "I just don't see what the big deal is. Everything we've found so far has been nothing but good. I'm stronger and faster than normal people. My senses are all improved and I don't have to sleep near as much and..."

"And you have a nearly insatiable appetite for barely cooked meat. That right there's cause for worry. What if you wake up one morning and decide you want some Doctor Edwin Matthews for breakfast?" The Doc chuckled as John shot him an incredulous look. "Yes, well, I might be exaggerating a bit on that one but the point still stands. Nobody gets something for nothing, John. Life just doesn't work that way. Sooner or later you're going to have to pay a price for all this and I intend for us to be ready when that time comes."

John sighed and rolled up his left sleeve and began clenching and releasing his fist to make it easier for the Doc to draw blood from his arm. "Yeah, yeah. Still doesn't mean I have to like it though."

The scientist ignored him and began going through the well-practiced motions of booting up the many lab computers. Finally prepared, he placed a bulky voice recorder on a nearby table and began his examination. "Date: September 23, 1996. Time: 0513 hours GMT..."

The younger male winced as the Doc began their usual ritual of drawing blood and running it through a number of expensive machines John was sure weren't standard issue for an ordinary doctor. From what little he understood of them, most merely tested his blood for a variety of infections or chemical imbalances, but apparently a few of them actually broke down his blood all the way to its base components to examine his DNA itself.

While the machines began their daily symphony of hums, whirrs, and beeps, John took the moment to examine their latest 'lab'. They'd just vacated a place in the middle of Portugal in favor of this small cabin in the mountains in the east of France. It wasn't much of a change. The house still had the bare minimum of luxuries, and they were still isolated away in the back-end of nowhere - though he had to admit the terrain here was far more beautiful than Portugal.

John sighed to himself again and began preparing himself for a long morning. They'd missed a week and a half of tests while moving and he had no doubts the Doc would insist on playing catch-up by running every test the various machines possibly could. He was right. He ended up having to sit still for a good three and a half hours while the Doctor poked and prodded him before letting him go. Also like he'd expected, none of the tests had revealed any new mutations or infections, and had only confirmed that his abnormally fast growth rate had continued unchecked.

It was because of that irregularity – and the amnesia – that they weren't sure of his exact age. But assuming his growth rate had remained constant, which was highly unlikely, and that he currently had the body type of an average nineteen year old male, which was only a rough estimate, than his actual age was likely somewhere around sixteen.

Their estimation of his time in captivity was even more shaky, their only reliable indicator being the level of education he had been able to recall when the Doc had first begun tutoring him – that and his apparent ability to fit inside a cupboard if his flashbacks were anything to go by. If they went off that, the fat man had sold him sometime around ten years old.

Which meant the kidnappers had stolen five years of his life from him, before he had somehow managed to escape from them and make his way to the Doc's doorstep in Racoon City, Colorado. Not a very pleasant concept to consider. There was a lot you could do to a person in five years, especially if you're immoral enough to be willing to purchase small children to use as human test subjects. More than anything, that was the reason he went along with Doc's research so placidly. Despite all his grumbling the Doc wasn't the only one who wanted to know just what had been done to him.

Finally satisfied nothing major had changed, the elder scientist released him and immediately began pouring over the minutiae in his data read-outs. John was quite familiar with the brush-off and merely stretched muscles stiff from having sat still for so long before heading to the kitchen to cook up their usual fare for breakfast. A simple meal of scrambled eggs and toast with a glass of orange juice for the Doc and a large variety of barely cooked hams, sausages, and bacon for himself.

He followed up his breakfast with his usual morning routine of school work. Although he had started with a five year handicap in his various subjects, his almost non-existent need for sleep, his natural intelligence, the Doc's skill as an educator, and the complete lack of anything else to do had already found him advancing into subjects a year ahead of where he was theoretically supposed to be. Even further in biology, thanks to the Doc's various rambling lectures during their morning tests. Both of them figured it was a rather appropriate atmosphere for the topic. Not to mention it gave them something to do while the machines cranked out their results.

All in all, it wasn't a bad life. The lack of outside companionship got somewhat lonely every now and then, but all together the two of them were content with each others' company. John was pretty sure the Doc was relishing having such an attentive student to teach – not to mention an an interesting, if potentially worrisome, test subject – and John was glad he'd had such a brilliant teacher to get him back on his feet.

After all, there weren't many people who'd be willing to take in some sort of lab rat escapee with absolutely no idea of what had been done to him and a severe case of amnesia. Much less, go on the run with said escapee in an effort to elude some invisible but ever-present enemy.

Though he supposed it was entirely possible his kidnappers weren't even chasing him. He could be perfectly safe right now. Maybe he'd killed whoever was experimenting on him before his escape from whatever lab they'd been holding him in, though he seriously doubted it. The idea of a weak, drug-filled, amnesiac somehow managing to kill a whole team of healthy scientists was just a little outside the realm of what he was willing to believe.

Still, it was a nice possibility to consider. Though by that token, he also had to entertain the idea that maybe they'd simply let him go and were just waiting for the right moment to take him back. Either way, unless he miraculously recovered his memory or it came up in one of his flashbacks, it was best to stay safe and just keep on running.

Outside of their morning testing, logging those flashbacks was the only other thing the Doctor absolutely required him to do. Even though he hadn't had a new one in months, every now and then he'd find some new snippet of information in one of the old ones and the Doc wanted to make sure they didn't miss a single piece of information. Each successive memory had the potential to reveal some new data about what had been done to him that could possibly lead to some sort of breakthrough in their research.

Though they'd learned little through his efforts so far. All they knew was that he was originally British, had been all but auctioned off to his captors by his guardian, and that the experiments they'd conducted on him had been incredibly immoral, excruciatingly painful, and more than a few times invasive and extremely gruesome. He could also vaguely remember a – friend? cellmate? – who'd looked like something straight out of a B-class horror flick. Seeing as he was pretty sure his captors had been responsible for the poor bastard's condition, it only made him that much more worried about what they'd been doing to him.

There was little he could do about by this point, though, except sit back and let the Doctor conduct his research. It didn't stop him from hoping, though, that they were just making much ado about nothing. He really didn't want to have to live the rest of his life with this hanging over his head.

--

The rest of their first week in France had rapidly turned out just like the last three countries they'd lived in. The only trappings of civilization for miles around the cabin was a small town in a nearby valley – really little more than a gas station, a small general store, and a few other small businesses that serviced the surrounding area. Which, while suiting their purposes perfectly, did not present a whole lot extra for entertainment.

Not that it really would have mattered anyways. Other than their weekly jaunts down to the town in the Doc's beat-up SUV to stock up on groceries, they stayed sequestered in the lodge. John quickly fell back on a habit he'd developed back in Spain and began taking occasional nightly hikes through the nearby mountains whenever he didn't particularly feel like studying or sleeping.

He soon found himself taking at least a short hike every night. There was simply something inherently peaceful about the forest at night that he felt did even more to restore him than a simple night's sleep. Especially, he mused as he stepped out onto the porch and shut the cabin door behind him, on nights like this one, with the full moon resting high in the sky and bathing the landscape in a soft white glow. Nothing to bother him or remind him of his unfortunate past – just himself and the rock beneath his feet, the wind whispering against his skin, and the quiet chorus of the forest's night life serenading his ears.

It was nights like this one which made up the majority of his best memories.

Unfortunately, the peace he'd been hoping for that night seemed somehow determined to elude him. There was an uneasy feel to the night time wind and an unnatural quiet on the air that was setting him on edge. He'd barely been out for a quarter hour when he finally decided to cut his hike short and head back to the cabin for some sleep.

Suddenly, he heard the crashing of a large animal in the brush far off to his left and he whirled around, wondering why he hadn't caught wind of it before realizing he'd wandered upwind in his distraction. He cursed himself for his foolishness and quickened his pace to a jog. He wasn't too far away from the lodge and whatever was following him sounded big enough that the thick brush should slow it down enough for him to get indoors before it caught up with him. Hopefully.

However, almost as quickly as it had begun the crashing suddenly disappeared and after several seconds John slowed to a stop. Had whatever it was given up pursuit? Perhaps it had gotten a whiff of the lodge on the wind and had decided to leave off. He knew human habitations gave off a bit of a polluted scent which deterred most wildlife more often than not. He couldn't particularly blame them either. The smell even turned him off and he lived in one.

After nearly a minute of silence, he resumed his hike back to the cabin. Even if the thing had decided to leave him alone for now, he'd been headed back there anyways. Besides, there was no sense risking it changing it's mind and coming back after him.

Almost immediately, the crashing erupted again, this time directly to the side of him and much, much closer than before. John swore vehemently and broke into a run for the cabin. The creature hadn't broken off pursuit but had simply gone to ground, so to speak, and had been sneaking in closer while he'd been busy arguing with himself. And like an idiot, he'd been stupid enough to stop and play right along into it's trap.

After nearly a minute of running, he realized despite his best efforts the thing was slowly catching up. There was a small chance he could make it back to the lodge before it caught him, but he didn't feel like taking the risk. If it was persistent enough to keep after him all the way there, it could very well be persistent enough to barrel into the lodge right behind him. And gods knew the good Doctor would kill him if any of his precious equipment got damaged.

Besides, it wouldn't be the first time that he'd had to square off with a wild animal on one of his midnight jaunts. He was far stronger and quicker than any human this thing, whatever it was, had ever run into and he was quite well practiced with the hunting knife he had tucked into his boot. Perhaps, he thought with a grin, the Doc might appreciate finding a new wolf's skin rug in the morning. Bear's skin? Mountain lion, maybe?

Seeing a break in the trees ahead of him, John pushed himself and sprinted into the small clearing. There, he turned around and braced himself to face whatever it was that was coming after him. His heart hammered as the crashing grew rapidly louder and closer. However, when the thing finally emerged from the trees, it wasn't at all what he had expected. Or had ever even seen for that matter.

He supposed the best way to describe it was some sort of man-wolf. Apparently the werewolves in those B-class horror flicks the Doctor liked to watch actually had some foundation in truth – not that the incredibly rational man would ever believe him when he told him. He wondered briefly, as he eyed the vicious looking teeth in the thing's maw, if a werewolf's bite was actually infectious like in the stories. Perhaps he had finally bitten off more than he could chew.

All musings were quickly forgotten as it sprang at him with a snarl. The thing was fast but it wasn't outside his ability to handle. Drawing the seven inch hunting knife from his boot, he deftly ducked underneath its claws and swiped the blade across the thing's left side. He threw himself to the side as soon as he felt the knife catch, avoiding a swipe of its claws, and backed away to survey the damage his attack had caused.

It was a nasty gash but it didn't appear to have hit anything vital and the creature certainly didn't seem like it was going to let a little cut deter it from further violence. It came at him again and John attempted the same maneuver, this time feinting towards its left and then going to right. The thing had apparently anticipated the attack however and instead choose to simply ignore the knife and leap straight at him, using its superior weight to bear John to the ground.

Its plan succeeded marvelously and John hit the ground hard as several hundred pounds of snarling man-wolf drove straight into him. He forcefully resisted the urge to curl up as the impact drove all the air out of his lungs and instead drove his knife deep into the thing's side. The creature recoiled with an agonized howl, allowing John to catch his breath, but kept on top of him – its greater weight and strength pinning him firmly to the ground and putting him in range of its wicked looking teeth.

However, the thing had never come up against John before and never suspected his adrenaline enhanced strength was a match to its own. As it snapped at his throat, he abandoned his grip on the knife in its side to catch hold of its throat in his right hand and one of its claws in his left. An imperfect defense, as it left its right arm free reign to maul his side - which it promptly began to do, the sharp claws sending nauseating waves of agony through his body as it tore at his side - but he was more than willing to take a few scratches as opposed to risking its teeth. Infectious or not, he wasn't about to let that thing take a bite of him and with the amount of pressure he was currently putting on its windpipe, the thing would choke to death before too long.

He couldn't help but muse grimly that the Doc was going to get a kick out of dissecting this son of a bitch. Assuming he survived long enough to drag it back to him, that was.

It didn't take long for the creature to understand the danger it was in and it began scrabbling to get away from its uncooperative prey. Realizing it was trying to get away, and more than happy to maximize his short term survival chances by letting it do exactly that, John took advantage of the extra space between them to leverage his feet against its chest and toss it away from him with a massive push. The creature sailed quickly backwards before impacting a nearby tree with a painful sounding thump, but was back and up on its feet in a flash and had already disappeared into the brush by the time John came to his own feet.

He wasn't about to say no to a good idea and left for the lodge at a run, practice helping him put the pain firmly out of mind. Not only did he not trust the thing not to come back for a second round but he was also bleeding rather profusely from his injured side. Which would no doubt attract other troublesome predators to him, which was quite possibly the the last thing he needed at the moment. Retreat was by far the best option in his opinion.

At the pace he was moving, it took him only a few minutes to reach the lodge. Slipping quietly inside, he immediately went to the bathroom and tore off his shirt in order to check the full extent of the damage. As he gingerly probed at his side, he mused that all in all the encounter could have gone much worse. True, his right side was a bloody mess, but once he got it cleaned and bandaged up all but the worst should be entirely healed up when he got up in the morning. Thank heavens for speed healing.

---

When he woke up the next morning, it was immediately obvious something had gone wrong. His right side felt on fire and was very obviously inflamed. He felt extraordinarily weak, his limbs sluggish and heavy as if they'd been weighted down with lead, and judging from the descriptions in his biology books, he was fairly certain he had both a fever and nausea, two ailments he couldn't remember ever having experiencing before. They weren't pleasant.

"Doc!" he yelled, appalled by how weak his voice sounded. "Could use a little help in here!"

The doctor rushed into the room moments later, toothbrush hanging limply from his mouth. While momentary relief flickered throughout his features when he saw his charge, the relief quickly gave way to worry when he noticed just what kind of state his charge was in. "What the hell happened to you?"

John quirked a weak grin. "Got attacked by a werewolf last night."

Doc frowned disapprovingly at him. "That's not funny John. I need to know what happened."

"I'm not lying." John responded, all joviality gone. "If the thing wasn't a werewolf than it was damn near similar. Either way, it got me pretty nice before I drove it off." He gestured to the crimson stained bandages that now lay on the bed exposing his side. "And something seems to have infected a number of the scratches."

Doc still looked disbelieving, but decided to ignore the topic in favor of the more immediate concern of treating him. He bent over to sling one John's arm over his shoulder and helped the invalid to his feet. "Alright," he said around his toothbrush. "Let's get you to the lab and get you checked out."

With Doc's help, John managed to hobble his way down the hall and into the lab, his side burning with every step he took. Collapsing onto his table, he couldn't help a scowl of disgust at his condition. He couldn't remember ever feeling this weak before – it was a feeling he was rapidly growing to despise.

So it was with even fewer protests than usual that he submitted to the Doctor's less than tender administrations. The elder man quickly took several samples of blood, both directly from the wound on his right side and from the arteries in his left arm, and immediately began running them through his machines.

While they worked on the samples, he began to address the inflamed wounds on John's injured side. Cleaning them once more, he proceeded to treat them with one of his various salve before binding them even more securely than John had last night. Then he dug around through his a large medicinal cabinet and came up with a small syringe and a pair of pills for John to take. Doc administered whatever was in the syringe to his side as he swallowed the pills. He ignored the man's admonitions to take them with water until a glass of the stuff was forced on him. Then, feeling uncommonly tired, he collapsed back on the table and closed his eyes in an attempt to get some sleep as the Doctor worked on the blood samples.

He wasn't sure how long he floated in and out of a fevered sleep before the Doc's voice woke him up. Still too tired and weak to bother with moving, though much of his early lethargy had disappeared, he simply laid there on the table and listened to the Doc muse aloud into his voice recorder.

"Interesting, most interesting. It seems like the virus is actively destroying the foreign bacteria in order to protect itself. I don't recall Lisa's strain ever behaving like that." There was a burst of typing as the Doctor began to look at something on his computer. "No, her virus simply mutated to incorporate each additional infection. This is definitely something entirely new. It's almost as if the virus has completely replaced his normal immune system."

He ignored the rest of the Doc's rambling and instead focused on the the name tickling at the edges of his hazy memory. Lisa... For some reason it seemed especially important to his fevered mind. Where had he heard that name before?

_He's lying on a hard metal floor. He doesn't know where he is. He can't even remember his own name... there's simply too much pain._

_He opens his eyes but can't see. He remembers now they'd taken away his glasses when they threw him in the cage. And now it's dark and cold and he can't see and he hurts so much and..._

_A voice sounds in the darkness. "Hello, little one. Don't worry, I'm here for you. I'm Lisa..."_

Lisa, he breathed silently. T-E0001-S001. The horror flick cellmate from his flashbacks.

His mind was rapidly inundated with memory after memory as he was suddenly able to picture her in all her grotesque detail. They'd hadn't actually been cellmates, but had instead been caged next to each other like animals in some lab. She'd been responsible for keeping him sane during those first few months of testing, before the constant drugs and experiments had put him past feeling.

"_Lisa?" he croaks. "You awake, Lis?"_

_He hears a scraping sound in the cage next to him. "Little one? Are you..."_

_He tries to answer but instead goes into a fit of coughing, misting the stainless steel floor with a fine sheen of blood. He hears Lisa move closer. "I'm okay. It'll pass. The fits were much worse an hour ago." He collapses weakly against the bars of his cage. "How much longer do you have?"_

_He leans into the slick tentacles that slide between the bars to gently stroke his hair. He could vaguely remember a time when he recoiled at their unnatural touch but now he just accepts them as part of Lisa. Besides, he's in too much pain to care anyways."Not much," she rasps. "They put me on some new drugs but the pain's already starting to come back."_

_He sighs. "Figures. They gave me..." Another coughing fit interrupts him. "They gave me something new too. I'll probably slip under before too long anyways. It would have been nice to finish your fairytale today. You know, the one about Hansel and Gretel."_

"_Little One, we finished that a week ago..."_

His mind flashed through more memories, the fever making them as painfully vivid as if he was living through them all over again. He remembered lying shackled to a lab table next to her as their tormentors put them through excruciatingly painful tests, watching helplessly as their drugs callously mutated her further and further. Every day she became less and less human and all he could was sit by and watch as his one and only friend was tormented into insanity.

_She screams, a horrible, agonizing sound that pushes through the anesthesia and brings him back to their personal, sterile hell._

"_Lisa!" he shouts. He tries to look over at her but his head is painfully clamped in a vice, his arms and legs shackled to the lab table. "Lisa! Leave her alone! I'll kill you! Lisa! I swear to god I'll kill you if you touch her! _

"_Lisa!"_

He began shuddering from anger as the emotions from the memory swarmed over him, before a single shocking realization struck him. Just how did Matthews know that name?

_-----_

Author's Note:

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Published: 04.02.10

Updated:


	2. Chapter 2

**Tyrant**

by Methinks

Chapter 2

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**_Warning:_** This chapter contains lots of technical blathering that, while accurate to the best of my ability to both Resident Evil and true science, may contain inaccuracies. I ask for your patience regarding them and your help correcting any truly egregious mistakes I may have made.

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All lassitude forgotten, he swiftly grabbed a scalpel from a nearby tray and lunged at the doctor, grabbing him roughly and forcing the surgical knife to his throat. "Who the fuck are you? How do you know Lisa?" he hissed. Caught completely off-guard, the doctor simply stared at him blankly so he pushed the scalpel a little harder, beginning to draw blood. "Answer me!"

Dr. Matthews swallowed nervously, his Adam's apple pushing against the knife. "If I promise to tell you everything, will you put the scalpel down?"

John pushed him away roughly, slamming him back into the desk. "No. But who knows, you might just live a little longer." He expertly twirled the knife through his fingers. "Now start talking."

The elder man hesitated for a moment longer before beginning. "I originally met Lisa Trevor back in 1978 when I joined a research team for a cutting edge pharmaceutical company named the Umbrella Corporation. Back then, we were doing testing on something called the Progenitor Virus, which in theory showed great promise for both military and medical applications. However, every single one of the test subjects infected with the Virus died in a matter of hours."

"All except for Lisa Trevor." John clenched his fists, his nails digging painfully into his palms, eyes narrowing.

The doctor nodded nervously. "Correct. Instead, Lisa's body mutated the Virus into something that was later dubbed as the Tyrant Virus, or the T-virus. The virus, we came to discover has four stages of infection. During Stage I, it kills the mitochondrial organelles in infected cells and replace them with a replica of itself. This lasts until the hosts entire system has been infected in this way, which can take from several weeks up to a number of hours, at which point it proceeds to Stage II.

"During Stage II, the infection begins to provide a number of benefits, including increased strength and durability. However, it also requires an enormous amount of energy, far more than the human body can possibly provide. After three to five hours when its needs inevitably aren't met, the virus enters Stage III and begins to consume the body's own cells, which, while providing enough energy for the virus to continue functioning, only leaves enough energy left over to power the motor neurons and the most basic of lower brain functions.

"This causes the Stage III infected to become little more than mindless creatures driven only by an intense need to feed. This stage lasts the longest by far. While I was still with Umbrella, we had postulated that as long as an infected host has even semi-regular access to a source of non-infected meat, they could exist in such a state for up to several years. Eventually though, the cellular degeneration becomes too great and the virus enters it's fourth and final stage. In Stage IV, the virus rapidly consumes the rest of the host's body, resulting in rapid decomposition and final death.

"However, in a few rare cases we noticed that occasionally the virus would follow a different path in its host, resulting in creatures we called Tyrants. Most of the time, the abnormal mutations followed a general pattern, usually including massive increases in size, strength, agility, and durability. Regardless of the outcome, with a single exception, these Tyrants were all monstrous nightmares – nearly unstoppable and possessed of an insatiable drive to destroy.

"Oh how they celebrated," the doctor reminisced, reprehension heavy in his voice. "We were one step closer to the perfect weapon. Regardless of the fact that we had created these abominations. Regardless of the fact that..."

John motioned sharply with the knife, cutting him off."What does any of this have to do with Lisa?"

"It's simple. Lisa was the original Tyrant as well as the sole exception to the rule. Their mother, if you will. Umbrella's Pandora's Box and their most valued subject. While the majority of the Tyrants were just as mindless as the other base infected while Lisa had somehow managed to maintain her sentience."

Dr. Matthews sighed. "As retaining cognition in these creatures was the final goal in the T-virus project, we continued testing on Lisa, continuously infecting her with newly developed strands in hopes of eventually finding one that would allow the subject to receive all the benefits of the virus while retaining such cognition. And as part of the original research team, I was among those that continued work on Lisa. "

John's fists clenched further, his nails beginning to draw blood. "You were one of the ones who _hurt _Lisa_?_" he hissed. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you now."

"No, I stayed only so I could try and help her," the doctor backpedaled quickly. "They were going to run their experiments no matter what I did but I wanted to at least try and minimize her pain as much as possible. But I was just one man against a ruthless organization willing to do anything to get what it wanted. I could only do so much. In the end, even my best wasn't enough to overcome my guilt and I quietly resigned.

"The Umbrella execs considered me unimportant enough to allow me to leave under a strict set of conditions, not the least of which was complete silence on the testing that Umbrella was conducting. I knew if they even suspected I had broken the agreement, they'd kill me in a heartbeat so I said nothing and simply lived with the guilt.

"Now this was all the way back in '83. After leaving the lab in the Arklay mountains, I moved to the nearby Raccoon City where I began teaching Biology at a Community College there. This continued on until a few months before your escape back in '95.

"When you arrived on my doorstep, you were almost completely incoherent. All I was able to get out of you was Lisa's name and something about how she said I could help. It was for her sake and my guilt over what I had helped do to her that originally caused me to take you in despite the obvious risk." The Doctor's expression turned grim. "All it took was one look at you and I knew immediately you were her son in all ways that mattered."

John narrowed his eyes. "Are you saying I'm one of these Tyrants things as well."

The man nodded. "I'm convinced that finding Lisa was a one in a billion chance for Umbrella. To find a second subject able to survive continued experimentation while retaining his mind had to have been a miracle to them. I don't doubt you and she are the only ones of your kind."

"Thinking Tyrants, you mean."

He nodded again before continuing his story. "My primary concern at the time was the extent of your infection. While I knew you were atypical for a Tyrant, I didn't know just how stable your virus was and didn't want you suddenly reverting to the norm and one of those behemoths suddenly appearing in my bedroom in the middle of the night. After determining that you were safe for the time being, I immediately began preparations to run. From which point on you know the rest of the story."

"And so all these tests you've been running have just been experiments on my virus?"

"Originally," the doctor admitted. "But the infection stabilized in our first couple of weeks on the run. The original T-virus had progressed to Stage II likely within days of your initial capture and exposure but all the tests Umbrella had been running on you had kept it constantly mutating, forcing your body to continue adapting and keeping the virus from actively mutating your body."

"So you could have healed me then?" John asked, outraged.

Dr. Matthews shook his head. "No. Once you had reached Stage II, you were completely infected. The virus had become a part of each new cell your body produced. It's now as much a part of you as your heart or your lungs. I'm sorry John, but there was simply nothing I or anybody else could have done."

John kept silent, unable to absorb everything the doc was saying. Oblivious to the young Tyrant's dilemma, the elder man continued on somberly, . "So for the past year I've just been monitoring it for changes. It's strange but the virus appears to have entered an inactive latency period. Almost like its waiting for something, though for what I can only hypothesize. So it seems while you are currently experiencing a few of the benefits of the infection, I suspect that they are likely just a fraction of what they'll be when the virus becomes active."

He hesitated. "Once that happens I have no way of knowing what course the virus will take. While my observations lead me to believe that you have a fair chance at retaining your cognition, there's still the chance that at that point the virus will revert back to the normal path of progression and your body will begin to break down just like the other test subjects. Without knowing why your virus mutated the way it did, there's just no real way of knowing outside of it actually occurring."

At that point John sagged back against the table he was leaning on, dropping the scalpel. The doctor's pity laden voice seemed to come from a great distance as his mind continued struggling to understand just what he was hearing. "I'm truly sorry John. I've done my best to try to figure your virus out, but without knowing more about what exactly they did to you, I've done just about all I can. Other than that, I can only continue to monitor the progression of the virus and hope that some new information comes up that allows me to help you out."

John said nothing. He didn't know what he could say; his all but felt his mind shut down as his entire world came crashing down around him. Suddenly, the room begin to spin rapidly around him, barely leaving him enough time to lunge blindly towards a nearby trash can and begin hurling up the entire contents of his stomach. The scalpel lay forgotten on the floor as he continued to dry heave into the bin. He felt the Doc crouch down beside him, rubbing his back and whispering comforting words.

He wanted to be angry at the man, wanted to hate him, but couldn't find it in him. He didn't know why he trusted the man's story – perhaps because of all he'd seen the man do to help him – but he honestly believed that Doc had tried to help Lisa in his own way. It would be stupid to fault the man for not being able to accomplish the impossible.

He finally finished heaving and sat back, wiping the vomit off on his sleeve. He supposed he should probably tie up the trash bag and dispose of it somehow. If what Doc said was true, than he was a walking biohazard. He'd have to ask Doc what the best way to deal with his infectious material was.

But later. He staggered back over to the lab table and collapsed on top of it. With his current condition, he was simply in no state to deal with all these revelations.

The Doctor respected his obvious desire for silence and instead of pressing the issue, puttered around the lab checking on all of his machines. After a while, he broke the quiet, "I'm not entirely sure if this is good news or bad news, but it seems that your virus has rather impressively defended your body against this latest infection. However, it appears to have mutated slightly in order to accomplish this. If I had to guess, I'd wager you might see a slight increase in your senses and your physical capabilities over the next few days but you shouldn't experience anything more than that."

John sighed. "At least that's something." Cautiously testing out his side, he was rather surprised to find out how much better it felt. Carefully unwrapping the bandages from around his chest, he was gratified to find that not only had the inflammation completely disappeared, but the gouges themselves were barely visible anymore as well. With that realization came the epiphany that he was absolutely ravenous.

Considering he'd just been throwing up, he didn't know how he felt about that.

He left the lab without another word and headed back to his bathroom to brush his teeth and rinse out his mouth. All of the sudden, all the Doc's strict rules about hygiene and sanitation became much clearer. He'd originally thought the man was just OCD or something; apparently he just didn't want to get turned into some half-rotted freak.

Once finished, he headed to the kitchen where he immediately tossed several rashers of bacon onto a frying pan before pulling a large steak out of the freezer. He briefly considered searing the outside before simply tossing it in the microwave to defrost; while he usually at least cooked them before he ate them, right now he had a strong desire for something bloody.

After he had eaten he finally started to feel more like his old self and decided to go about his studies as normal. With no idea of whether or not that wolf thing was still out there, he wasn't about to take any further jaunts outside and he desperately needed to keep his mind occupied at the moment and off the day's revelations. There was no way he could handle something of that magnitude right now.

He threw himself into the books with a desperation he hadn't felt since he'd first began his schooling a year and a half ago. So involved was he that he was completely startled when sometime later a knock came at the door. His head snapped up and stared blankly at the unassuming oak door across the kitchen, a single thought echoing through his mind. Nobody should be knocking at their door.

The quiet sound of a twig snapping outside galvanized him into action. He moved through the kitchen as quickly and quietly as he could, taking great care to avoid the windows, and grabbed a large cutting knife from the knife rack and slipped it into the back of his pants. From the direction of the lab, he heard the sound of shells chambering in the shotgun Doc kept at hand in the lab. John gave a grim grin at this. They might have had their differences this morning but in this they were most definitely united.

Though now that he thought about it, the morning's revelations also explained why the doctor had always kept the gun out and within easy reach while they were in the lab. He'd always thought it was just in case they were found. He gave a dark chuckle. Instead it was just in case he needed to be put down like some rabid dog. Wasn't that a comforting thought?

He meet the Doc in the foyer in front of the front door. Doc looked at him somberly. "How many are there?"

John concentrated on listening, his powerful ears picking up sounds far too quiet for the Doc's. "There's two in front of the door." He paused, listening harder. "And I think there's at least two more moving around in the woods outside. They're obviously not professionals. Not with the amount of noise they're making."

Doc thought for a moment. "If I can keep the two at the door involved, do you think you can take care of the other two outside and then circle around behind them?"

John considered that for a moment before nodding. "Shouldn't be a problem. I can slip out the back window in your room."

Doc nodded. John moved swiftly and silently through the cabin and back to the window just as a third knock came at the door. He could hear the Doctor opening the door as he quietly slipped out the opening and into the foliage outside before concentrating his attention on his prey.

He circled around to the right side of the house first. Target number one turned out to be a young woman, in her early twenties if he'd had to take a guess. She was quite petite and obviously unused to the woods, if her constant shifting was anything to go by. Even more surprising was the fact that she had bright pick hair, wore some unsightly looking dress, and was holding a thin wooden stick pointed at the door.

If he'd had any doubts about their professionalism before, they'd just completely disappeared. It was appallingly easy to sneak up behind her and slam her head into the side of the tree next to her, knocking her out cold. He began a brief search of her dress as soon as she had collapsed, but found nothing on her other than her stick. He picked up and slipped it in his back pocket, noting a slight tingle as he did so. The sensation was soon forgotten though as he focused his attention on the next target.

Target number two was much better hidden, the lack of pink hair helping tremendously. But all his shifting around in the brush was making a ridiculous amount of noise, which made it child's play for John to find him as well. He was concealed on the left side of the house so John circled back around, not wanting to get caught out in the open crossing the gravel road.

It took a moment to actually spot him in the brush but the rustling of a nearby bush gave him away. John had to stop himself from audibly scoffing as soon as he laid eyes on the man. Target two was also wearing that ridiculous dress of Target One – despite the fact he was a large African man, obviously not female at all. He couldn't believe it – ruthless Umbrella was sending transvestites after him. He was almost insulted.

It was just as easy to sneak up behind the man and take him out the same way he'd dispatched Target One, though he slammed Target Two's head into the tree a second time just to make sure. A quick search of the man's dress revealed nothing more than another stick, just like the one he'd gotten off of Target One. This John pocketed as well.

Satisfied the two were out of it for the moment, John turned his attention back to his surroundings. He couldn't hear or smell anyone else outside of the two men at the door so he moved closer, taking another position that would make it easier for him to attack. Quietly, John listened in. It seemed the strangers, an old man with a large white beard and a sallow-faced man with a greasy complexion, had been inquiring about an attack the night before, apparently offering to lend their services with any injuries that had resulted.

The old one was good, John had to give him that. He actually seemed to genuinely want to help and John might have believed him had he not just dispatched the man's two cronies waiting in the bushes. The failed ambush certainly hadn't done anything to help the man's authenticity. Though it was obvious to John that the Doc wouldn't have bought the man's story even without the extra evidence.

"I'm afraid you must be mistaken," Doc said through the small crack in the open front door. "Nobody here has been attacked recently and so we have no need of your assistance."

"Nonsense," the old man replied with a striking British accent completely out of place in their part of France. "I simply must insist. It's really no trouble at all."

John could see Doc straighten up, evidently having had enough. "I'm afraid that if you don't want any trouble that I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

The two visitors seemed to come to the simultaneous conclusion that the Doc wasn't going to let them in, though John could have easily told them that beforehand. At that point both men raised their own sticks and the young Tyrant suddenly realized that they must actually be some sort of weapon. He moved immediately, pulling the cutting knife back and coming up behind the greasy man's back. He drove the long knife straight through the bone and cartilage of the shoulder joint of his right arm, causing it collapse limply at his side, the stick falling out of unresponsive fingers. The man started to turn, but John pushed the knife deeper into his wounded shoulder, forcing his shoulder forward and causing him to turn and face the hard stone wall of the lodge, which John proceeded to drive him face first into.

As the man slid down the wall unconscious, his large, broken nose tracing a bloody trail across its surface, John yanked the knife out of the man's shoulder and turned to face the old guy right as Doc leveled the shotgun at him as well. The man took it with complete aplomb, and lowered his stick, causally ignoring both their threatening positions. He turned to John and smiled serenely. "Hello, Harry."

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Author's Note:

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Published: 04.13.10

Updated:


	3. Chapter 3

**Tyrant**

by Methinks

Chapter 3

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"Hello Harry," the old man said with a cordial smile. "Can I assume the rest of my people are in a similar condition?"

John nodded curtly without moving his eyes off the man. "They're all out cold. Next time, you might want to tell pink hair that bright colors don't do well for camouflage."

His smile didn't waver. "I'll be sure to pass your message along. I must say, it is good to see you doing so well."

"I wish I could say the same," John said without feeling. "But I'd rather just ask you to take your people and leave. You're trespassing."

"I'm afraid I can't do that Harry," the man said, holding up his free hand when both John and the Doctor raised their weapons. "At least not until we get a chance to sit down and have a little chat."

John risked a quick moment to glance over at the Doctor who gave him a curt nod. "Alright then. Drop the stick on the ground and back away from it." The man did as he was told and John swept over and picked it up.

The Doc motioned with the shotgun. "Come on. Into the house." As the elder man began to obey, the Doc's eyes darted to John and he nodded to the woods, a dark look in his eyes. "You go take care of the others."

The unspoken promise in his voice seemed to unsettle the man. "By take care of, you mean..."

"Frisk them for weapons and tie them up."

The man gave a soft sigh of relief that John, with his advanced hearing, was barely able to pick up. "Do you really believe that's necessary? I promise you we mean no harm."

John gave a derisive snort at that. "Yeah, I'm sure innocent people everywhere regularly decide to take walks through the ass end of nowhere and knock on random houses while extra people hide in wait in the bushes to jump them."

The man seemed to color slightly at that. "Yes well..." He coughed. "I will admit that perhaps that was not the best way of going about things. However we could not be certain as to how well we would be received."

Nobody said anything else and after a few seconds the Doctor gestured again with the shotgun. "Inside."

As the two of them disappeared into the lodge, John began dragging his first two victims out of the bushes. Upon finding out that they both had other clothing on underneath the robes they were wearing, he divested them of the heavy garments, making it far easier to search them. A search which revealed absolutely nothing. No wallets or ID, no cell phones, not even a crumpled up receipt or two. Except for their sticks, the two were carrying absolutely nothing.

The sallow man had a bit more on him in that he had an extra stick strapped to his lower leg in an odd sort of holster. John removed it and bundled all the sticks together, tucking them into his jeans' pocket for the time being. He took one last moment to slam their heads back against the ground, ensuring that they remained out for the time being, before he began dragging the bodies inside the lodge.

The Doc and their visitor were currently occupying the only two chairs in the small living room, the Doc with a bundle of wrap-ties in his lap. He tossed them to John. "Here, tie their hands together and then tie them to the legs of the kitchen table. That way we can keep an eye on them."

John did as he was told, tying their hands behind their back and then using an additional tie to secure the first back up against the table legs. That done, he used two of the remaining ties to bind their sticks together before going and storing them in a filing cabinet inside the lab, which he then proceeded to lock. It made no sense to leave them easy access to their weapons, after all, in the unlikely event that he and the Doc were overcome.

Finally he went back to the living room and, grabbing a chair from the kitchen table, proceeded to join the Doc and their guest. The Doc looked at John. "You got them tied up good and tight?"

He nodded. "The ties might be cutting into their wrists slightly, but I can guarantee that they're not getting out of them."

"Good," Dr. Matthews said with a note of satisfaction. He then gestured at their visitor with the shotgun. "Now I think its time that you start talking. Who the hell are you and why are you here?"

The man cleared his throat before beginning, "I wasn't lying when I told you about who I was or why I was here. Perhaps I did leave a few things out but..." When he saw that neither the Doctor nor John, who was playing absentmindedly with the large kitchen knife, looked amused he cleared his throat again. "Very well, my name is Albus Dumbledore and I did in fact come here because of an attack last night. An attack I know happened because I currently have the attacker lying in the Medical Wing of the school I preside over."

John stopped playing with the knife and tightened his grip on the hilt. "I think you had better explain yourself," the Doctor said coldly.

"Have you ever heard of werewolves?" Dumbledore asked.

The two of them nodded. "The only place werewolves exist are in B-rate horror flicks," the Doctor said disdainfully. "Perhaps you should start taking this more seriously. I assure you, in this neck of the mountains, nobody would ever find your bodies."

The old man paled slightly, but continued on. "I assure you that I am being completely honest. Werewolves do in fact exist and, sadly, are all to common in our world. It is a disease you see, one that is transmitted through contact with bodily fluids and is, to date, completely incurable." The skin around the Doctor's eyes tightened but he didn't say anything. "The disease causes the Werewolf to loose control of their mind and transform into a wolf-like creature every full moon. Which, if you may recall, was last night.

The old man continued on. "The man who attacked Harry over here," he gestured to John, "was currently working for me on a diplomatic project in this area. Usually, he takes extra pains to imprison himself on the night of the full Moon. However, last night he managed to escape his confines and ran off into the forest where he eventually happened upon Harry. Now, part of the horror of the werewolf transformation is that while you are unable to control yourself, you still witness everything you do while transformed. And so, while the man was able to recognize Harry, he was unable to prevent himself from attacking him.

Dumbledore paused and his brow furrowed slightly, "I have received his testimony of the attack and everything he said had seemed to be completely genuine. However if it weren't for the fact that the wounds we treated corresponded with how he claimed the attack went and that we did actually find Harry here, I would find myself completely in doubt that the attack ever occurred. I've never seen anyone recover from an attack so quickly before." He turned to look at John. "What exactly did happen last night?"

John ignored him, instead exchanging a glance with the Doctor. He took a hint from the look in the Doc's eyes and remained silent, letting the scientist continue his questioning. "As you can obviously see," the Doc said gesturing to John, "your man had to be mistaken. There has been no attack, we are all quite obviously in perfect health, and there is no one here by the name of Harry."

Dumbledore gave another slight cough, interrupting him. "I assure you, I am not mistaken. That boy sitting there is in fact Harry James Potter, born July 31, 1980, in Godric's Hollow, England to Lily and James Potter."

Finally John had to interrupt, to the ire of Dr. Matthews. "So you know who I am then?"

Dumbledore couldn't stop his look of surprised "You mean you don't remember?" He glanced curiously at the Doctor to see him grudgingly shaking his head.

"John – Harry – and I met a year and a half ago and has no memories of anything before that."

Dumbledore sat back in his chair. "Well, that does explain some things," he said finally. "Can I assume that means you don't remember anything of Hogwarts or the Dursleys?"

"The Dursleys?" John repeated, the name ringing a bell somewhere. Suddenly it clicked, the kidnapping dream. "You mean the fat man? The one who kept me in the cupboard?"

Dumbledore paled dangerously. "I don't know anything about a cupboard, but Vernon Dursley was indeed... abnormally large."

John snorted. "He was a fucking whale. And I only have one memory of the Dursleys and nothing about this Hogwarts."

"May I ask what this memory is?" Dumbledore inquired.

John knew better than to answer that. The Doc would have his hide if he revealed any more information than necessary. If it hadn't been for the fact that he had to know who he was, John would never have mentioned a thing about his amnesia. "You can but I'm just going to tell you to..."

"What is this Hogwarts you're talking about?" the Doc cut in before Harry could say anything else.

"Hogwarts is a boarding school for gifted young people," Dumbledore replied, a hint of pride in his voice. "One of the premiere schools in the world as a matter of fact."

"If it's a school for gifted students," asked the Doctor, not at all impressed by the older man's admission, "how is it that when I found - Harry- he had no more schooling than a ten year old?"

Dumbledore hesitated before continuing, "Hogwarts is not exactly a normal school. Just as werewolves exist, so does magic. Hogwarts is one of many institutions for the instruction of children in the various magical arts."

The stoic Doctor scoffed at that, no doubt finding all these stories of magic and Werewolves absolutely ludicrous. John knew it was only the attack last night and the presence of that strange infection in his side that he was even considering any of it. No matter what the Doc said, he knew what he'd seen and that was no regular wolf. Fortunately – or unfortunately, Harry wasn't quite sure which – Dumbledore didn't seem quite ready to give up. "Those sticks you found us with, those are our wands. They allow us to use our magic to cast spells. If you will return mine I will gladly show you a few things so as to assure you of my honesty."

Both John and the Doctor scoffed at this. "No?" Dumbledore sighed, "I suppose that would be rather foolish from your perspective. Still, I am capable of a few simple wandless spells, so if you'll allow me..."

The Doctor waved his hand to indicate assent and then leaned back in his charm with the barest of smirks on his face. No doubt he expected for the old man to either fail entirely or perform a few slight of hand tricks the Doc would be able to see through.

So the look of surprise on the Doctor's face as his chair began to float up into the air was absolutely priceless. The man nearly fell out of the large armchair in shock, before waving his hands all around it to look for invisible wires or some other such trick. Dumbledore seemed to be enjoying the Doctor's reaction almost as much as Harry but soon lowered the chair back to the ground, much to Harry's regret.

"That spell is the Levitation Charm, one of the first things our students learn. I can also perform a few other tricks - some slight transfiguration and conjuration spells amongst them." He changed a nearby book that John had left out into a goblet and then a pitcher of water appeared out of thin air which he used to fill it. He held the goblet out in obvious offering, but John grabbed the cup before the Doctor could. He knew the Doctor would be unhappy, but if it was some sort of poison, it was far better that he drink it than the Doctor did. Not only would the Doctor be better able to treat him but his system was far better equipped to handle the effects than the Doctor's would be.

However, it seemed to genuinely be water and surprisingly cool water at that. He gave the Doctor a nod. "Alright," the scientist said finally, no small amount of reticence in his voice. "Let's say this magic does exist. How did you let Harry," – the Doc didn't stumble over the name this time – "disappear and why couldn't you find him afterward? Don't you have some sort of spell for tracking people?"

Dumbledore nodded sadly, "We do and I am still unsure as to why it didn't work. As to how he disappeared- Well, Hogwarts is only open nine months out of the year. For three months every summer all students return home to stay with their families. As far as we were able to determine, shortly after Harry arrived at the Dursleys during the summer after his first year, they were all taken from the house and brought somewhere. And we have been completely unable to find any of them since.

"Until now, that is," Dumbledore clarified a moment later.

The three sat in silence for a few moments while John – no Harry, he reminded himself – and the Doc absorbed everything. This simply wasn't his day, he mused. First the morning's revelations regarding Lisa and his infection, and now all this crap about magic and Hogwarts. It seemed fate was really out to get him today. He idly wondered what he'd done to piss her off.

He was broken out of his thoughts by someone groaning from the direction of the kitchen table. All three men looked over to see Pink Hair beginning to stir. "Oh, Merlin..." she moaned as she slowly cracked open her eyes. "Did anyone get the name of the Hippogriff that ran over me?"

Harry could see the exact moment her situation hit her as she tried to stand up and was jerked back down against the table leg. Looking around worriedly, she spotted the three men looking at her and noticed to her obvious relief that one of them was Dumbledore. "Uh... Headmaster? What's going on here?"

Dumbledore didn't answer immediately, but instead turned back to Harry and the Doc. "Gentlemen, let me introduce you to Nymphadora Tonks. She's another trusted associate of mine and what we call in the Wizarding World, an Auror. Its our police force, if you will."

The two men nodded, but didn't say anything. She took advantage of the momentary silence to interject, "I don't suppose someone could come untie me over here?" The Doc gave her a scathing look. "Had to ask," she muttered as she looked away, a slight blush on her face.

"If we can return to our previous topic, his amnesia does bring up a slight issue." Dumbledore ventured. "Harry needs to come back to where he belongs. While I admittedly don't know all of the circumstances, it may be the only way to help him regain all of his memories."

"_John_," the Doctor emphasized, evidently through humoring the old man, "Doesn't need to go anywhere unless he wants to."

"Harry," Dumbledore emphasized right back, "has many friends in our world that miss him greatly. And while he does not have any remaining family members, he has a godfather that wants very much to take him in."

Neither the Doctor or Harry said anything. Finally, the Doctor said, "You wait there. Harry and I need to discuss this. And I better not see you move an inch unless you'd like to get shot."

Harry and the Doctor moved off to the side and began talking in hushed tones, Harry with his back to the group and the Doctor far enough behind him so that he could watch their guests whilst his lips remained concealed. "What should we do?" Harry asked.

The Doctor sighed. "I have no idea. No doubt with them having discovered you, if any of this magic nonsense is actually true they'll be able to track you again. And they do seem to truly know some details about your past. I suppose it's really up to you."

Harry thought about this for a minute. "What about you? If I go with them, what will you do?"

The Doctor answered immediately, "I'll be coming with you. You still need someone to monitor your infection. Besides," the Doctor gave a wry grin, "I've become rather attached to having such a good student after all this time. And if your former education is anything to go by, you'll need a halfway decent teacher."

Harry smiled back, despite their troubles this morning he did like the Doctor and was grateful for everything he had done for him. "Good because I've become rather attached too. I don't know what I'd do with myself if I had to wake up in the morning and not be treated like a lab rat for several hours."

"Perhaps they'll be able to better hide us from Umbrella, as well." The Doctor sighed again, "Looks like we're already moving again." He looked around the lodge wistfully, "And I rather liked this place too."

Harry grinned, somewhat excited in spite of himself. "They're the ones who want us to move. I say we make them buy the new house and we go ahead and keep this one."

Dr. Matthews gave him a small grin back. "You know, that doesn't sound like a half bad idea."

"So we're going?"

The Doctor groaned. "Looks like it."

The two of them went back to the living room proper to find their other two captives had come to as well and were all engaged in a quiet discussion. No doubt discussing escape plans, Harry thought. He grinned, that sallow looking bastard was going to get a nasty surprise if he was depending on his spare - wand?- to help him.

The Doctor looked at Dumbledore calmly and stated, "Very well. We've discussed it and we've decided to go ahead and go with you. I'm assuming this is on a permanent basis?"

The old man nodded, a pleased smile on his face, but the sallow man immediately began to yell. "Absolutely not. There's no way that we could possibly take a Muggle back with us to Hogwarts!"

Harry calmly walked over and crouched down beside him before patting his cheek with the flat of the knife. "I think you're forgetting just who exactly has the power in this deal of ours. I think we just demonstrated exactly how poorly equipped you are for dealing with us." Then his eyes narrowed dangerously and his voice grew cold. "Dr. Matthews comes with me or I don't go anywhere. And the next time you send people after us, I won't simply knock them out and tie them up." Harry straightened and looked straight at Dumbledore. "I'll kill them."

He looked back at the sallow man. "So that's your choice and you can either take it or leave it. But the Doctor and I are a package deal and that's simply non-negotiable."

Dumbledore stepped in before things could escalate any further. "We can make arrangements to take Dr. Matthews with us. I would like for us to go back tonight if at all possible." He looked at the Doctor who shook his head.

"Not possible. If Harry and I are coming with you we need time to pack up our lab. I assume that you have something in mind for lodgings?"

Dumbledore took a moment to think about that. "I think that I can assume that you are going to insist on staying close by to Harry?" The Doctor nodded, "Then it may take me a few days, but I shall make the necessary arrangements. There is a small town within walking distance of Hogwarts. I will rent a small cottage there for you."

The Doctor thought about that for a moment. "I believe that will be acceptable. Provided," he amended, "Harry be allowed to visit for a few hours every day."

Dumbledore paused. "Can I be correct in assuming that is also non-negotiable?"

The Doctor nodded firmly. "Yes, it is."

"Very well. That also can be arranged."

The Doctor nodded again, pleased with how things were going. "If you are looking for expediency here, then you will have to furnish the cottage yourself. If we are forced to move all our furniture from here it will take as much as a week longer to move to England."

"I assure you, moving the furniture would not be a problem. However," Dumbledore gave a knowing smile, "I assume that you would rather not abandon the lodge here?"

It was only because Harry had known the Doctor for so long that he was able to notice the small blush that appeared on his ears at being caught out. "It would be preferable."

"We can arrange for the cottage to be furnished before your arrival."

"I will need a room left empty for my equipment." Dumbledore nodded. "I don't suppose you also have some way of avoiding customs? Otherwise I will need to take a few days to call in a few favors. Some of the equipment is- frowned upon for private ownership."

Dumbledore nodded again. "I will need 24 hours, but I can make the necessary arrangements for you."

"Very well," the Doctor assented. "We will begin packing up the equipment immediately and should be ready to move it by sometime tomorrow afternoon. If you will send somebody to inform us of the travel arrangements, we will attempt to get there as soon as possible."

"Then if you will release my colleagues and return our wands, we will leave and begin to make arrangements on our end."

The Doctor nodded to Harry, who began to cut the three- wizards?- free, saving the sallow man for last and making sure to put some unnecessary pressure on his wounded arm. Harry didn't know what exactly it was about the man, but something about him simply rubbed Harry the wrong way. With the three of them free and rubbing the circulation back into their hands, he went and retrieved their wands from the filing cabinet.

When he got back, the Doctor was making the necessary farewells. He handed the bundle of wands to the Doc who handed it to Dumbledore in turn. "I suppose that we shall see each other soon."

"Until then," Dumbledore responded and turned to Harry with a smile, "And let me be the first to say that it will be good to have you back with us Harry."

Harry didn't say anything, but gave him a polite smile and a nod. With them armed again, he wasn't about to give them any chance to try and pull something at the last minute. But his worries proved unfounded and they left without incident. As the Doctor locked the door behind them, they looked at each other. "Things are about to get complicated, aren't they?"

The Doctor collapsed back against the door and sighed. "I'm afraid so. This is hardly what I signed up for when I took you in," he said, his small grin taking the sting out of the words. "Werewolves and magic. And here I was thinking I had seen it all."

He sighed again. "Regardless, it looks like we have some packing to do and I want to run a few final tests on you to make sure that your infection has completely consumed this Werewolf disease completely before we put them away."

Harry groaned.

--

As soon as they had gotten a respectable distance away from the lodge, Dumbledore and the two Aurors disapparated back to Grimmauld Place while Severus went back to Hogwarts to get Madame Pomfrey to treat his broken nose and wounded arm. Upon arriving at the Manor Dumbledore was immediately set upon by a worried Sirius. "Did you find him? How is he? He's not infected is he?"

Dumbledore gave him a calming smile. "Settle down Sirius. Did the Order members arrive like I had asked?"

The anxious man nodded. "We were all waiting on you to get back."

"Good, good. Then I suppose we had best not keep them waiting any longer." As soon as the Order members saw him stride into the room they had gathered in they immediately descended into complete chaos, each clamoring to ask their questions first. Dumbledore remained silent, inwardly counting down the seconds until...

"Quiet!" shouted Mad-Eye. "You might actually learn something if you let the man speak!"

Dumbledore smiled. As reliable as clockwork, Mad-Eye Moody was. "Thank you Alastor. Now, as I'm sure you all have heard by now, I called this emergency meeting of the Order for one reason: we have managed to locate Harry Potter."

Dumbledore paused to arrange his thoughts before speaking. "He has been living in a hunting lodge buried in the mountains in Eastern France with a Muggle doctor."

Sirius interrupted at this point, unable to control himself any longer. "What about the attack though? Is Harry alright?"

Dumbledore smiled. "Not only was he alright, but it seemed like he survived the attack completely uninjured."

The crowd burst out in questions at that, but it was Emmeline Vance who voiced the main question everybody wanted to know loud enough to be heard. "He survived a werewolf attack completely uninjured? That's impossible!"

"I assure you my girl that not only did Harry survive unscathed, he was well enough to put Nymphadora, Kingsley, and Severus all out of commission with nothing more than a kitchen knife."

Both Kingsley and Tonks couldn't help but blush at the reminder of their failure. "It's true," Kingsley admitted. "We all woke up bound to their kitchen table with our hands tied behind our backs. Not only that, but he had both broken Severus' nose and put that knife of his through the Professor's shoulder."

Dumbledore frowned slightly as Sirius burst out into raucous laughter. A number of other chuckles echoed from around the table, the majority coming from former students of Snape's.

"Still," Dumbledore said continuing to frown, though this time in thought. "When I viewed Remus' penseive memory, I distinctly saw several very nasty gashes along his side. Even with magic, Werewolf inflicted wounds are impossible to heal overnight, much less with Muggle methods. Also, Harry looks much older than a sixteen year old should.

"Most importantly however," Dumbledore continued, "Harry seems to be suffering from complete amnesia. He remembers nothing until a year and a half ago when he apparently showed up on the doctor's doorstep."

The Order went silent at that, each pondering the possible implications. Dumbledore took advantage of the silence, "Fortunately, in spite of the less than auspicious start, we have made arrangements for Harry to come to Hogwarts. However he has insisted that his doctor come to Scotland with him."

The Order broke back into discussion at this and Dumbledore waited for it to calm down before he continued, "They insisted he be kept close to the school and that Harry be allowed to spend several hours a day with him, so I have agreed to set him up with a cottage in Hogsmeade..."

There was absolute chaos at this announcement. Dumbledore sat back and waited for Moody to take control of the crowd once more. Sure enough, he stepped in, quickly silencing the rowdy Order members. "Yes, I am aware that this could prove quite problematic. However, this doctor appears to be quite flexible and with some basic instruction could easily pass himself off as a squib. I shall simply have to place a few charms on him that will allow him to avoid all the usual anti-Muggle charms."

"Why didn't you just obliviate the Muggle and take Harry anyways?" somebody asked.

"Because," Dumbledore responded calmly, "by that point Harry had already taken all of our wands. So that would not have been an option even if we had wanted to consider it.

"Furthermore, Harry made it quite clear that if the Doctor did not come with him than he would not be coming peaceably. That if we tried to remove him away by force, he would respond with lethal action."

The Order erupted once more and this time Dumbledore let it. Something was very worrisome about the whole situation, he thought to himself. Harry had been wounded, Dumbledore had no doubt about that, and should not have been able to recover from those injuries so easily. And that speed he had moved at while taking down Severus...

He had a distinct feeling that before the end having the doctor there may be a very good thing after all.

*****

Author's Notes:

Again, I'm well aware that it's not my usual update day, but I've had the past couple of days off work and the boredom drove me to put all the finishing touches on this far earlier than I had to. Hope ya'll enjoyed it. As far as the next chapter goes, it's possible it might come out this Friday but to be perfectly honest, it's far more likely to be next Friday. I do have other stories I need to be working on as well. We'll see though...

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Published: 04.18.10

Updated:


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